Birds

I know… Two birdy posts in a row… Well, as it’s apparently World Photography Day, I figured what better opportunity to dust off one of my very own personal favourite photo’s ever taken by me… back in 2006… and as much as I hate to admit it, with an *ahem* Nikon… S’cuse me !!… An old E8700 semi compact… (Actually, it is a real good little camera, even now, just don’t tell anyone I admitted that… ‘k)… BUT, if you look at this one large, and compare it to my previous Red Tailed Hawk viewed large… Well, you’ll see the “real” difference between this old shot, and what I’m using now.. ;)

Like this:

So, one of the aforementioned stories from our recent holiday… Kids can be so embarrassing eh…

We were heading though a small village in the heart of the New Forest, which for reasons I’ve not yet investigated was the “Witch” capital of the New Forest… full of lots of little souvenir shops selling.. well.. witch and wizard and dragon based souvenirs… So I informed my ever so gullible youngest daughter that this was where ALL the witches live….

*Side note*.. Did you know that the word “gullible” doesn’t actually appear in any dictionaries !!..

Well she had a semi freak out until we told her they were good witches… lol… Anywho, we continued through the village and arrived at a Raptor Centre (hence the photos). As we were walking from the car to the entrance, a woman exits the centre and heads for her car…. As we cross paths my youngest points directly at her, and from literally no more than 2 feet away (and at full volume) asks the following question…. “Dad, is SHE a witch ??”….

and all that stuff… A few weekends ago I took my daughter to a very local RSPB nature reserve, home to thousands of wading birds both native and migrant, and some quite rare breeding birds of prey too, such as Marsh Harriers and Hen Harriers and Hobbies… Far too many species to mention here…

My daughter loved it, armed with her binoculars and bird book, and note book too to make note of all the different species she identified… She managed to list somewhere in the region of +25 different species, which included a pair of Marsh Harriers and a Hobby, and a bus load of Avocets…

I naturally went armed with a long lens and trusty DSLR… and here’s a few of the days fluffier highlights…

Sedge Warbler

Swallow - Ready For Take Off

Yellow Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

Meadow Pipit

Btw… I have been messing about with an idea for a shot, that didn’t exactly turn out as planned, and during editing took on a rather macabre twist, unlike anything I’ve posted in the past… so I’m taking votes on if I should post it ??… Do you wish to see something decidedly less fluffy ??… ;)

I unfortunately really never had time to get any shots for this months Karma’s scavenger hunt, apart from one purple flower thingy wotsit, so I’ve pretty much had to trawl through my archives… But in an attempt to compensate for my lack of time and effort, I’ve included a couple of shots for most of the required themes…

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The themes were…

A Colourful Bird
And as I wasn’t allowed to post a “proper” Ladybird.. lol… Well… I had to just plump for a few old pics of some colourful birds…

A Grad (of any sort)
So we have Peppa Pigs Class of 2010… and they DID all graduate… Honest… ;)
We also have me graduating in the basics of simple science, thanks to the teachings of Aswirly, and YES, I DID graduate… Honest… ;)

A Dad (of any sort)
Well I was going to plump for an old fave Swan shot of mine, but I’m thinking that it’s likely a Mother and baby, and as I’m not sure how to (or brave enough to) determine the sex of Swans… well… I went with an old clone shot of Me(s) and my Daughter(s) and Cat(s)…

Something Purple
Well this is the one shot I actually did manage to take for this month… and it’s one of those flowery type things… The PointyPurplePettalus… I think..
Oh, and one of my favourite “purple’y BLUE” shots, of The Lloyds “inside out” Building in London

A Butterfly
Well this was “nearly” a shot from this month, but it was from a trip last month to a wildlife centre with a tropical butterfly house, and unbeknown to my youngest daughter, one of the largest of the BF’s in the house landed on her hat… and sat there for some time, happy to just ride around, much to the amusement of everyone except my daughter (who couldn’t see it)… Oh, and a couple of other butterfly shots for good measure..

A Funny Face
Well, you can’t beat a cow at close quarters for a funny face methinks… especially as close as this shot was… This is a pretty old shot, and using the wide-angle lens I was, I had NO idea exactly how close said cow was… That was until the tongue came out and covered my lens in cow spit… Which was nice… lol.. And as a special bonus, there’s the shot a friend took of me capturing the cow spit shot…

A Cow
Well if the first two cow shots don’t count, then there’s an additional one of some cows on a rather moody day in the Lake District… This one was captured without having to endure additional cow spit, but if you look at the sky, you might be able to figure I got pretty wet shortly after taking this shot…

Well for some of these, I think that’s probably the most apt title… with faces that only a mother could love… ;)
Recently we visited Arundel Wetland Centre, which is 26 hectares of naturalised landscapes and wetland habitats, home to kingfishers, water voles and many hundreds of wildfowl. Funny story about the Water Vole, but more on that later… ;)

And this one has to be a prime candidate for the coveted title of Freaky Beak of the Year 2011… It’s a Ruddy Duck… but does look strangely cute, in a duck kinda way… ;)

Speaking of freaky eyes though, the Pochard is definitely one duck that features high on the list of creepy looking with that bright red peeper staring at you…

HAD to include this one in the mix, but not because it’s freaky in any way…. but the kids and I spent quite some time watching these little Long Tailed Ducks scooting around… They’re diving ducks, and seemed to be having so much fun… The thing that appealed to me the most though was their call… Here’s a link to listen to, but to me it sounded as though they were saying “Oy !!, Are you alright ???….. Arrrrrgh !!!”….

Now THIS is DEFINITELY a face that only a mother could love… It’s a baby Coot…

And who’d ever believe they’d grow up to look like this !!!… Mummy Coot and Baby Coots learning all about… well… probably how NOT to be picked on by all the other much more appealing baby ducks… “Just get back in there and hide in the bushes until you look like me”

And lastly a White Faced Whistling Duck… for no other reason than… well… I thought I’d best end on one that you gotta love… :)

Now for the Water Vole, which unfortunately we never saw…. The Water Vole had almost been wiped out by Mink, but there’s a concerted effort underway by a lot of various wildlife trusts etc to reverse the decimation (at the expense of the Mink)… and at this particular wetland centre they have successfully re-introduced back in to the surrounding wetlands about 400 wild breeding pairs… Now obviously this is something they’re quite proud of, and readily advertise their success with Water Voles with various display boards around the centre… We were walking past one such display with a big picture of a Water Vole on it, and my youngest daughter stopped… looked at the picture, and exclaimed “Awwwwwww…. Look at the cute little WATER BOWL”…. LOL… And with her, once she HAS a name in her head, then there’s very little you can do to convince her otherwise… Haha… It was even funnier though when she tried to correct one of the guides (who was showing us here we might spot a Water Vole) that it was a Water BOWL !!!… Kids… Gotta love em… almost as much as ducks… ;)

Well everybody else seems to be doing it, and I have really needed to make better use of mine, so I’ve given in to a spot of MMM… (March Macro Madness), and given a bit of spring weather this weekend I attached said macro, and went in search of all things tiny…

The real question to me though… and I KNOW given the geographical location of majority of my blog buddies that it’s an argument I’ve already lost regardless… BUT, I’m never one to be defeated so easily…. lol… SO….Ladybirds or Ladybugs ???…

I know I’m right though, cos wikipedia says so… lol… to quote… “The name “ladybird” originated in Britain where the insects became known as “Our Lady‘s bird” or the “Lady beetle”.[8][9] Mary (Our Lady) was often depicted wearing a red cloak in early paintings and the spots of the seven spot ladybird (the most common in Europe) were said to symbolise herseven joys and seven sorrows.[8] Common names in other European languages have the same association (the German name Marienkäfer translates to “Marybeetle” or, literally, Mary-chafer).[10] In the United States the name was adapted to “ladybug”.[10]“

SEE… LadyBIRD !!… Ladybug was just an adaptation of the correct name… lol… ;)

I WIN !!… especially as I can edit anyones comments, to make sure they agree with me… lol… :p

View large, and tickle him under the chin if you dare… He won’t bite… much… ;)

Funky Slug Photo’s on Flickr

For an alternative to the photography I have posted here, please also check out my Flickr website, where I go under the pseudonym of Funky Slug. Here you can preview a much larger selection of my work.